Volcanic ash: socially disruptive!

In the first blog, we talked about the definition of volcanic ash and its environmental significance. Here, we are going to focus on its impacts on society.

Volcanic ash can influence human health:

Figure 1. The anatomy of the lung and potential diseases triggered by the fine ash entering airways Source: Horwell and Baxter 2006

According to statistics, 9% of the world’s population reside within 100 kilometres of a volcano that erupted in the past. To them, the spread of volcanic ash can directly lead to respiratory discomfort as well as breathing difficulties (see Figure 1). Tiny ash particles irritate the lining of people’s airways, causing acute symptoms such as rhinitis, tracheitis and asthma. Among those short-term manifestations, asthma can be deadly for elderly persons and children because they have more fragile airways compared to adults.

The casualties caused by volcanic ash’s attack on the respiratory system have been carefully recorded. Around 185,193 people died owing to asphyxiation from ash during the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Also, clinical studies of ash exposure among local loggers reveal that acute respiratory symptoms were extremely higher after the eruption. In addition, hospital visits for respiratory diseases, particularly asthma, surged during the disaster.

Apart from respiratory difficulty, volcanic ash can also lead to eye irritation and instability of mental health.

Here, you might be relieved that you do not live close to an active volcano. However, you may think twice after I talk about the wider social damage following the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland.

Volcanic ash can cause the closure of airspace and a series of knee-jerk reactions:

Figure 2. Eyjafjallajökull’s ash cloud spread quickly from 14 to 25 April, 2010 Source: Wikimedia Commons 2010

When Eyjafjallajökull erupted in April, the volcanic ash quickly spread to other parts of the Northern hemisphere (see Figure 2), resulting in massive disturbance to European air travel. In only one week, more than 95,000 flights were suspended, leaving 10 million people stranded at the airport (see Figure 3). Under the circumstances, some of them chose other transport to go home, but this caused a serious strain on the European ferry and train networks. Meanwhile, the costs of ground transportation soared due to significantly increased demand, yet the available capacity was still inadequate.

Figure 3. Passengers had no choice but to sleep at the airport terminal in Frankfurt Source: Silz and France-Presse 2010

Accompanied by social immobility were great economic losses. During the eruption, global airlines lost approximately 1.8 billion dollars, and the cost of the inability to transport people and commodities ranged from 1.7 to 3.3 billion euros.

Last but not least, the volcanic ash from Eyjafjallajökull reveals deep-rooted risk management problems in Europe. The European airspace system showed low efficiency when responding to the natural disaster because it is operated by separate national air traffic control systems. This extended passengers’ stay at the airport. Meanwhile, over 90 airlines were not willing to afford the food and hotel expenses of stranded passengers, which aggravated the latter’s anxiety.

By delving into the social relevance of volcanic ash on human health and the closure of airspace, we can see how tiny particles have caused considerable damage to our society. The next blog will use this idea to list crucial stakeholders who can work together to address the problem.